Hello, and welcome to our ongoing research project into Anti-abelism, cultural inclusion, art, music & creativity for young people with SEND.
This research project evolved from a project called A Home for Me. The A Home for Me project was created by Open City (an institute that delivers workshops in London exploring the built environment) involving three SEND schools, one of which was College Park school in London and their creative arts leader Paul Morrow. The workshops were led by artist Marc Woodhead and musician Luke Crookes. The A Home for Me project ran for two years and after this Paul, Marc & Luke wanted to continue the project, adding in the freedom to explore, what is means to be an artist for young people with SEND in an SEND school context.
Through these workshops and explorations the young students with SEND are given the space to show and teach us new ways of being creative, experiencing arts and culture, and learning. We are investigating, experimenting and exploring some of the conditions and assumptions that shape the way we access and experience the arts, creativity and what it means to be an artist.
This is ongoing research and we are continually evolving this webpage as we find better ways to tell the story of this work and evolving practice. Please enjoy exploring our page.
Collaborators
Paul Morrow
Lead Practitioner of the Creative Arts at Westminster Special Schools
Co-ordinator of the West London Inclusive Arts Festival
Co-author of the Cultural Inclusion Manifesto
Author of Cultural Inclusion for Young People with SEND; Practical Strategies for Meaningful Inclusion in Arts and Culture
Cross-arts collaborators
Artists – Marc Woodhead and Musician- Luke Crookes have collaborated on creative projects for eleven years and been constantly evolving their practice through: a willingness to be in the unknown, curiosity in what the experience of life and being human is, an unusual and enquiring use of their art forms, and an unconventional style of workshop practice.
Research presentation to PHD team at Kings College London
Anti–ableist pedagogy; an essential pedagogy
Characteristics of anti-ableist pedagogy
Strategies of being
Arriving
Being present
Creating space
Tuning in to the students
Encountering sounds, movement, and materials
Noticing what arises . . .
Creating space which is . . .
Non-hierarchical (all creative processes have equal status – see below)
Inclusive, which provides an equity of dialogue (everybody in the room is valued as an artist, verbal and non-verbal dialogue valued and utilized and seen as an asset)
Which has an array of entry points and possibilities for creative play (in sound, movement and encounters with materials)
A non-hierarchical approach and a palette of creative play
All creative play was given equal status; sounding, movement, dance, drawing, playing with materials; clay, printing, painting, colour paper, corrugated card, brown paper, all accorded equal status
Setting up an equity of dialogue in the room; non-verbal
communication, sound qualities and rhythms, are valued alongside words and actions
Characteristics of anti-ableist pedagogy
Creating a fertile climate by . . .
Providing an empathetical encouraging support system – invisible scaffolding
Inviting purposeful playfulness (in sound, movement and encounters with materials)
Encouraging the voice (the person, personhood, subjectivity) of the individual artists to emerge and blossom
Inviting purposeful playfulness with sounds, movement and materials
It could superficially look like “free expression”, “anything goes”, however, a more accurate description of the workshops at College Park would be; an investigation into sound, movement and materials within limited forms, for example; mnmnmnmnmnm, and imaginative exploration of a tablet of clay or modelling material . . . .
The pedagogy is evolved with the students for the students
“Tuning in” to the students, noticing and capturing the invisible processes, and easily missed happenings in the room, that deepen our understanding of the student’s way of being, their paradigm . . . .
Collaborative wall drawing
Purposeful play in the multiverse
Mirrors the birdsong of sounds communication between students in the art room
Artist N2 – this artist’s table looks like a “bit of a mess” however this photograph documents the residue of an extraordinary exploration of water and charcoal, paint making process. The artist used a wooden roller, printing roller, jugs, containers, cling film, card, sugar paper, to crush and sift into an extraordinary package of silver-grey paint through a process of alchemy!
Conversations between sound, vision and material in the multiverse
“It’s a Flower”
Interpretation and the extraordinary gift of seeing through a different lens
“Diversity of outcomes illustrate a structurally inclusive and anti-ableist approach to pedagogy”
Differences in being, seeing and experiencing are seen as assets and offer creative opportunities for enquiry”
Paul Morrow
Encounters with material
Clay
Clay each artist was given a square of clay 15cm x 15cm x 3cm
Artist N1 created a sculpted form of interlocking sections
“The multiverse”
Owen Smith’s description of the range of perceptions and paradigms in the room
Clay
“Diversity of outcomes reflect differences in being . . .”
Paul Morrow
“Assessment is qualitative in approach and tells the story of the students learning using both ipsative and narrative assessment”
Paul Morrow
Examples of the artist’s responses and work with materials
Artist S2
New to the class, artist S2 was silent and standing in the corner in Workshop 1 . . . they blossomed during the project . . . making, joining in, exploring, on their own terms . . .
Artist S2 clay work
Within the space we created with and for the artists, of creative playfulness, sounds, and experiments with material could expand (here off the cardboard sheet dragged across the table to explore the clay differently)
Artist S2 – yellow chalk mark-making, exploration of the chalk material on black board black surface, and over LA R’s graphic drawings. S2 moves with the cream chalk with curves a constant application of pressure on blackboard black
Artist S2 non-figurative white mark gestures on right
The person, personhood and subjectivity can emerge, be revealed through purposeful play, by observing the creative process, and by reviewing (comparing) each artist’s work individually, forming a sense of each artist’s journey through the project, and by reviewing audio and video recordings of the (easily missed) happenings in each workshop
S2 –
Exploring the phenomenology of material
S2 was absorbed in exploring cutting, tearing the sponge, and placement of pieces on the table in the light . . .
The importance of noticing and documenting the unseen processes and happenings in the room . . .
Artist S2 –
Exploration of material
This artist has a particular way of exploring the properties of material; chalk, clay, sponge, corrugated cardboard . . .
Highlights the importance of recording the process of the artist’s engagement with this exploration
Issues around ethical means of documenting, this recording of the absorbed state of the artist was handled with great sensitivity
“There are multiple entry points into the project, and these are informed by the students”
Paul Morrow
Offering multiple entry points . . .
An invitation to encounter and explore the phenomenology of material
To start art making (drawing, printing, clay work, collage, etc) non figuratively, mark-making, playing with material, along with an invitation to see what shapes, forms, ideas, stories, or narratives, “arise”
The special interests of each student
Examples of the artist’s work
Artist A2 – forming out of exploration of the phenomenology of material
Examples of the artist’s work
Artist M – the alphabet is a special interest of this artist
“Learning is co-constructed, and the student is fully acknowledged and is central within this process”
Paul Morrow
“Difference is seen as an asset and a positive, and a space for creative exploration.
A creative, divergent space
This idea of difference, difference of experience and difference of viewpoint chimes with those whose bodies and minds do not conform to notions of normalcy. Here creativity is located within a divergent and inclusive space.
Creativity in the classroom
The creative “space” gives opportunity for learners and teachers to play, to explore and experiment. It allows for the pursuit of seeing different, of viewing the world through a different lens.”
Paul Morrow
In Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker, set in a post apocalyptic landscape a guide leads two characters into a strangely beautiful, unsettling, unknown space called the Zone. There is an exchange, guide becomes guided through the Zone.
Owen Smith introduced this exchange as a metaphor for facilitating learning with artists on the spectrum, a characteristic of anti ableist pedagogy. Guide and then be guided into a different paradigm . . .
Action Research
Assess, Plan, Do, Review
Anti–ableist pedagogy; an essential pedagogy
- Case study – Open City Project (the initial project)
- Describing some of the characteristics of anti-ableist pedagogy
- Research focused project – extending our understanding of anti – ableist pedagogy
- Structure/Methodology
- Findings
- Implications
Anti-ableism and disablism
The two words are similar in that they both describe discrimination and prejudice towards disabled people. However, there are differences. Disablism describes direct and overt discrimination and prejudice. Ableism describes discriminatory behaviours that favour non – disabled people.
Ableism in Education
This can take many forms. It is particularly overt when education is promoting through practice(s) and assessment the notion of normalcy.
Context
NSEAD (National Society for Education in Art and Design) Special Interest Group for advancing anti-ableist pedagogy
Developing a discourse to further this, how and in what way does it present? How can it be supported in practice?
Inclusive pedagogy and anti-ableist pedagogies are closely aligned
Anti-ableist pedagogy corresponds with the work of the influential thinkers of critical pedagogy such as Bell Hooks and Paulo Freire
*Critical pedagogy questions practices that are repressive, it is the pedagogy that is transformational through its practices. These principles correspond to the social model of inclusion in that they both promote positive change.
Open City Project
This was the second year of the SEND Architects in Schools project. The aim of this project was for the students to engage with architecture, architects, and the built environment. The project was facilitated by an artist, a musician, an architect and the organisations facilitator and ran for several weeks.
The participants
The young people
Autistic children aged between 8 and 11 years of age
The visual artist
Marc Woodhead. Marc has a keen understanding of artistic expression and enquiry with a specific interest in material exploration
The musician/ sound artist
Luke Crookes. Luke is interested in how the music could shape and inform learning, how it could support transitions into work and enhance the learning experience, interpreting and respond to these to facilitate a deeper enquiry
The class team; teaching assistants
Active participants within the research
The Lead Practitioner
Conversation and reflections
Implications of the case study; Open City’s
Significant increase in young person engagement; use of special interest to support this
Cross arts project/contemporary art
Multiple entry points and diversity of outcomes
Some of the characteristics of anti – ableist pedagogy established
Anti- ableist research project
Research question:
To further develop an understanding of the characteristics of anti-ableist pedagogy in Creative Arts pedagogy
Aims:
To develop an understanding of its characteristics and signifiers so that we might be able to support, extend and amplify these through.
- Project builds, extends the principles of a previously funded John Lyon’s project (Open City)
- Students are considered artist; child as artist
- The project placed co-production and co-construction as its driver – supporting special interest
- Using characteristics of the approach and pedagogy we would like to develop this further
- The use of contemporary art practice as an impetus for the project.
- Project introduce the work of Nenna Kalu – neurodivergent artist
Methodology of the research
Epistemological approach
Co – produced with the class team
Co – constructed with the learner
Action Research approach, no predetermined outcome(s)
The project – on a Wednesday for 7 weeks
Week 1 – Arriving – weaving the soundscape
Bassoon long note drone to relax
Devised Mnmnmnm song to settle and establish as tool for project
Sounding shapes
Rhythm in response to something that happened
The arriving and leaving song used as relaxation tool-MNMNM
Mnmnmnm song to settle from head to body
Blackboard black
Creating space,
Environments,
climates in which creative playfulness could flourish
Co-production and collaboration
Co-production and collaboration
Creating equity through collaborative drawing
Week 2 – Atmosphere & sounds while making is art itself
Towards an anti-ableist pedagogy
Questioning, reflecting and developing the project through an action research process of reflection and review
Creating spaces, arriving, arising, tuning in, noticing the invisible processes in the room
Timings of a workshop day
Creating a new pedagogy with the artists for the artists
Week 4 – Invisible processes
Multiple entry points and a diversity of outcomes
An example of staying in self while being present with student improvising, not trying to guide or interact. When Luke (holding the camera) makes sound he is not trying to interact with the student, he is staying in his own experience and in doing so, allowing the student to stay in theirs, yet there is a cohesion and energy to both Luke and the students expression in the moment.
Film created for week 5
Luke musician creatively responding to the students work on the train on the way home
Exploration of tearing corrugated cardboard
Material exploration and curiosity. Though exploration and manipulation. Presented, facilitated and extended.
Tapping
Introducing the work of neurodivergent artist
Nnena Kalu as a point of reference/ response to the students.
*supporting the concept of an inclusive canon
Week 5 – Use of microphone
A burst of harmony
Some issues we encountered
- Bart Simpson- colouring and giving hair – child said no
- X said why not tape Triangles to paper & chimneys.
- X said its Free play. They would do this if I gave them free play all day. Its not free play
- X said What’s the plan?
- X was Tearing next to y, but wasn’t in it or in their own experience
- We really need to explore and share with them before, as it undoes what we’re doing
- Its like they’re in their narrative and not tuning into the students. Not fully joining in. Lots of reasons why that may be the case. Its complex and needs careful consideration and preparation
Findings
Increased Engagement
Students were found to be engaged more in their own art practice and more motivated. Students actively asked for art lessons and as a consequence have more timetabled art lessons.
Shift in classroom practice
Introduction of this type of practice in other subject areas to enhance leaner engagement
Diversity and difference as a positive
Difference wasn’t pathologised, difference was seen as an asset and a positive and a space for creative exploration.
A creative, divergent space
This idea of difference, difference of experience and difference of viewpoint chimes with those whose bodies and minds do not conform to notions of normalcy. Here creativity is located within a divergent and inclusive space.
Creativity in the classroom
The creative “space” gives opportunity for learners and teachers to play, to explore and experiment. It allows for the pursuit of seeing different, of viewing the world through a different lens.
Where does it sit in relation to other pedagogies?
Anti ableist pedagogy; an essential pedagogy and a natural progression from critical pedagogy?
Anti-ableist pedagogy corresponds with the work of the influential thinkers of critical pedagogy such as Bell Hooks and Paulo Freire, both of whom saw education as a place and space for positive change for individuals and groups.
Critical pedagogy questions practices that are repressive, it is the pedagogy that is transformational through its practices. These principles correspond to the social model of inclusion in that they both promote positive change.
Co–constructed learning
Learning was drawn out and sequenced and extended alongside the student. Chimes with the Vygotskian notion of the more experienced other or scaffolding and that knowledge is culturally generated.
Implications
- Neurodivergent creativity in assessment procedures
- To further the philosophical approach of anti- ableism in a more overt way; the notion of being “seen” and acknowledged within educational practices
- Challenge the notion of “school art” vs Art practice
- The implications to the wider school curriculum
Towards an anti-ableist pedagogy, an essential pedagogy
Special interest; subjectivity
Approach
Action research; do, plan and review cycle
Pedagogy
- Facilitation V provocation; interventions, direct teaching and ZPD ( Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development), disruption?
- Co-construction; playfulness
- Unseen processes
- Language
- Education paradigm V arts paradigm
- Creativity
Power
- Discourse of the classroom and the environment
- How do you create equity?
- Equity of dialogue
Phenomenology and neurodiversity; how do we experience?
Shifting identities; roles
- Understanding the different players, teacher, TA, student…
- Building trust and rapport
Creativity and anti-ableist pedagogy
“Creativity is itself a mode of learning. It is distinctive in the combination of three features: a. It involves a thoughtful playfulness — learning through experimental ‘play’. It is serious play conjuring up, exploring and developing possibilities and then critically evaluating and testing them. b. It involves a special flexibility in which there may be a conscious attempt to challenge the assumptions and preconceptions of the self — an unusual activity in which there is an active effort to unlearn in order to learn afresh. c. This process is driven by the need to find, introduce, construct or reconstruct something new. It seeks actively to expand the possibilities of any situation. In this sense the learning of creative thought is not neutral; it has a bias towards the innovative.”
(Taken from All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, Report to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, May 1999)
Why it works – how this project arose through a gap
There are a few chance reasons this practice has got this far and not been closed off by ableist and conditioned modes of mainstream practice
- The children are wonderful because they will not conform. They will not allow a process to be planned and done to them.
- The children have endless amounts of creative play and destruction ability. They are not to bothered about if anyone likes it, they got it right or it becoming a product.
- Paul Morrow allowed and supported it.
- Luke and Marcs approach to their lives, art forms and leadership are interested in this. And when the two combine you get this unique ability to hold this space open.
- This project had three lives under very different guises. Firstly Sophie draper a creative project leader. Secondly Sarah Philips a secondary school teacher. Thirdly Paul Morrow an artist, creative, teacher and supporter. The path through these context helped us to understand and in many ways fight for the work. We were able to keep going for long enough to learn how it works. And the things that may see it off as rubbish.
Extra depth on the project and practice
History of the project
| Year 1 Open City 2019 | Covid lockdown | Year 2 Open City 2021 | Year 3 project 2.0 2022 |
| 1st Education manager Lots of creative freedom. Remit: Make a building, use your skill to create this project appropriately. | Lockdown and zoom provided access and time to practice with vocal & body practitioners who work at the edges. Sandra Reeves -Move into lifeSten Rudstrüm – Action theatre.Margaret Pikes – freeing the voiceKate Hilder Action theatre. | 2nd Education managerPreviously a secondary school teacher. Remit: Make a building. Do it my way. Tape triangles to the tables. | Be an artist. |
| Music used as a tool & creating song and soundscape compositions. | Music used to reflect qualities, structure, space . Song used to explore ideas and say hello & goodbye | Music – sounding & abstract. Mnmnm. Introduction of Arriving Arising ReleasingSounding Marc and Luke’s practice began to shift, alter, evolve. |
Beginning to define the practice
Challenges for the work
The mainstream world is most often locked in:
- Going
- Thinking
- Doing
- Form
- Subject object relationships
- An idea of time space
- Identity
Creativity and learning use form as a starting point (eg. triangles & language) and are created out of form rather than form being tools for expression of what is arising. This use of form is a foundation for many ableist norms.
The note to make is that this is the way of making sense of the world and existence itself so it should never be pushed on people to break them out of their state, or force them to question this too much. If and when the time is right for someone and of their own choosing they can explore and may dissolve sone of these things while also releasing, growing and migrating to other ways of being and experiencing. This is a life long journey if at all. Ironically the elephant in the room is form is currrently used to create, organise, condition and civilise human behaviour. It’s a double edged sword type situation. We don’t seem to have a better way of creating ourselves yet.
Art and creativity can arise from this space of essence , timeless and now but it’s a never ending gap that does and should exist. But when a human is totally externalised and disembodied of mind, imagination and source energy, life is a struggle.
There are many ways to exist, enter and experience life.
Theory
- Creating spaces to arrive in our body, in the space and in different modes of being, expressing, exploring & creating
- Spaces of pre-technique and pre-form
- Led by invitation, guidance, questioning, holding
- Space of multi-point, multi narrative, multi-verse
- Tuning in to atmosphere. Form expressing from arsing energy, essence & atmosphere. Not starting with form as much as is possible.
- Closing the subject object and experience itself becoming art
- You enter this work differently and it is a different paradigm
Process
- Arriving – mnmnm- and movement
- Arising
- Encountering materials -provocation- investigating- limitations of art material & arising sound palette
- Arising
- Absorbing
- Arising
- Making-sounding-moving
- Improvising -waves – they show us, we follow
- A happening happens- flowing, responding and improvising the room wherever it takes us. Everything is music. Much like starlings murmuring. A fabric that fluctuates in waves of individual, small groups and whole groups then continues
- Held, guided and experienced by both leaders and art-form in various ways throughout
Art forms & leadership
The leaders and art forms of art, music and sound are used in different ways to respond the students, hold the space and allow group to enter the happening of creative expression on their own terms
Holding space for each other
Being present and genuinely in it
Getting curious, including curiosity about the perceptions, perspectives and experience of the group, the team and fellow leaders.
It is less leading (but can be) and more that we are being in our own artistic expression, and we may co-express with others, but we don’t seek to actively manage or guide as that can quickly and invisibly pull them out of their experience.
Method & perceptions
It is collaborative leadership – we have instinct and trust in each other
It often looks like we are very relaxed and not doing much. It’s very easy to miss or for some people they are not in a place to tune in to it. We are putting participants at their ease, gently inviting, guiding, questioning, holding, making space, being with; and trying not to get in their way
Huge amounts of planing, preparation and arriving go into setting up the session
People may think we are not leading, teaching, organising, directing or imparting skills and knowledge. When in fact we are being completely present , tuned into the group and responding
People may think we are doing it around them and they are doing nothing. When it does happen, if you’re in properly it it’s hard to notice or witness, so you wouldn’t know it’s happened. And it’s complex and can be multi point ,pre-form, pre-technique expression. It remains invisible and hard to measure or prove. Art is left behind which is useful, sound and music disappear
People may think the art or sounds are rubbish but they aren’t, they are in fact full of energy and complexity thats defies labels.
A practice
- We live our practice as much as we practice. It is a life long enquiry. A personal journey.
- We have ongoing conversations and reflections far beyond the time allowed to projects. This enables a reflection and depth of enquiry that otherwise could not happen
- Opening up space in workshops and our own lives
- Pointing towards something that is invisible and defies explanation
- Our practice has evolved over 11 years
The School context
- The school as a context is filled with conditions and modes of mind, body, being, and doing.
- The space we are working in (art room) also has many modes of mind and conditions attached to it
- Over the sessions we seek to gently initiate different ways of being in these spaces by continually setting the room up in different ways and evolving the processes from week to week.
- This is to loosen the conditions of the context and to disrupt the group falling into a habitat idea of our sessions, and in doing so, falling asleep in their own habit.
- The goal is to arrive in presence allow whatever arises to arise
What it’s not
- Drawing figuratively outlines of characters
- Singing songs
- Making artistic soundscapes and installations
Implications
In the 7 weeks we have learnt how to setup an environment. A longer project would help us dig deeper
This practice can raise the bar for all learning
These students show us another realm
What is expressing, imagination, creativity
Research time is needed as there’s such a lot to dig into
It would be good to have teachers and TAs that opt in the approach and commit to reflection
It would be good to have time to work separately with the staff to get them understanding the methodology and explore ways of working.
College Park School
Pink Class
Artist: Marc Woodhead
Musician: Luke Crookes
Project lead: Paul Morrow.
Teacher: Mateo
Teaching assistants: Inga. Jude. Romeo. Zoe.
Funders: John Lyons
Contents
Research presentation to PHD team at Kings College London
Open City Project in years 1 & 2
Anti- ableist research project in year 3
Findings and implications
Towards an anti-ableist pedagogy
Why it works – how this project arose through a gap
Beginning to define the practice. Slides from the presentation
Challenges for the work
Theory
Process
Art forms & leadership
Method & perceptions
Practice
The school context
What it’s not
Implications
Photos
Tuning In 